Financial Services Committee

Press Releases

WASHINGTON – U.S. Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, made the following speech on the House floor Wednesday evening blasting the Obama Administration’s dangerous nuclear arms agreement with Iran and urging his colleagues to vote against it.

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

“Now, the president says it’s a good deal, and you know what? He’s right. It’s a very good deal…for Iran. But it’s a very bad deal for America.

“I fear in his rush to try to build a legacy, the president has clearly given up far too much for far too little. He has done this at the expense of our security, as well as the security of our friend Israel and other U.S. allies.

“Mr. Speaker, this is a deadly serious matter.

“The first thing the president does in his agreement is to give them some start-up capital: an estimated $120 billion held abroad will now be repatriated back to Iran’s central bank. $120 billion to a regime whose Supreme Leader to this day calls for the annihilation of Israel. A regime that still chants ‘death to America;’ a regime that has put bounties on the heads of American soldiers and has the blood of American citizens on its hands; a regime whose sponsorship of Hezbollah has left our closest ally in the region, Israel, with 80,000 rockets trained on it. In sum: a regime that represents the world’s largest and most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism.

“Now President Obama would have us believe that waiving sanctions against this regime would make the world safer. But this is the very same president that dismissed the Islamic State as the ‘JV team,’ and we see what that has gotten us. This is simply not an administration whose assessment of national security threats is credible, and the stakes involved with a nuclear Iran leave zero room for error.

“In truth, Mr. Speaker, I fear it is we who sent the JV team to negotiate with Iran. Sadly, they were outplayed, outmaneuvered and outwitted, and the result of their failure is the dangerous agreement we have before us today.

“It is such a flawed agreement that the president yet again tells Congress we have to pass something to actually find out what’s in it. In other words, the president has utterly failed to provide the secret side agreements.

“President Obama once told us: ‘We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.’ But under his deal, Iran’s nuclear program will not be dismantled – only temporarily slowed. And that’s if the “Iranians don’t cheat. Because the president’s team has failed to achieve anytime/anywhere inspections, it will be impossible to ensure the Iranians aren’t cheating. Ah, but don’t worry, Mr. Speaker. We’re told the Iranians will turn themselves in if they cheat. Really?

“In short, the president’s agreement rewards Iran’s terrorist-sponsoring regime with billions of dollars in relief without any guarantee of compliance.

“When you look at the record, Mr. Speaker, I don’t trust this administration. I don’t trust the Iranians. Why would we ever trust the two together? For the sake of national security, I urge all my colleagues to reject this flawed and dangerous agreement.”